Nintendo's recent 2013 Annual Report — in which President Satoru Iwata states that he expects to see a return to bumper profits this financial year — features some illiumitating figures regarding the company's incredible sales record over the past three decades.

Since the Famicom was launched in Japan in 1983, Nintendo has sold an astonishing 268.97 million games consoles — that means Famicom / NES, Super Famicom / SNES, Virtual Boy, N64, GameCube, Wii and Wii U. The company has also shifted 385.15 million handheld consoles since the launch of the Game Boy in 1989. That includes the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS.

Consoles need software of course, and the sales figures for games are equally impressive. 2.195 billion console games and 1.907 billion handheld games have been retailed by Nintendo in the past 30 years across both physical and digital distribution formats (that figure also includes bundled games).

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